News for Shearwater

First of all, Happy New Year! You guys are the best. Seriously. 2012 really feels like it’s going to be a good one, or at least an okay one. But, we’re really feeling optimistic. The optimism I was just saying about stems from the fact that the first couple of months of 2012 we’re putting out some pretty awesome records, and if it’s any indication of the rest of the year, we’re in for a great year (at least until the Mayan calendar proves true, and we all part from our mortal vessels, or whatever).

On February 14th, we’ve got Animal Joy, the Sub Pop debut from Shearwater, a record we’re very proud and excited to be releasing. Then, we’ve got the debut LP from Memoryhouse, called The Slideshow Effect, and it’s a very strong debut. On March 13th, we’ve got the debut LP from South Africa’s Spoek Mathambo, called Father Creeper. It’s impossible to pin this record down genre-wise, which is part of what makes it destined to be one of the coolest sounding records of the year. Also on March 13th, we’re releasing a long-awaited collection of the long out-of-print first four albums from Australia’s feedtime—all remastered and with bonus material. We’re rounding out an action-packed March with the debut record from Seattle’s THEESatisfaction, and a 7" from Retribution Gospel Choir, both on the 27th.

Yep, 2012 is definitely shaping up to be at least as pretty great as 2011.

On February 14, 2012 Shearwater will release their Sub Pop debut Animal Joy. You can now check out the debut offering off the band’s new album entitled “Breaking the Yearlings” by entering your email address into the widget above.

The band will embark on a 13-date North American tour opening for Sharon Van Etten beginning on February 2nd with European shows to follow. See below for a full list of dates, with more shows to be announced soon.

One of the most original and acclaimed bands of recent years, Shearwater, have recently entered into a recording agreement with Sub Pop Records of Seattle, WA.This is news worth sharing.

While they’re not saying much about the record yet, singer Jonathan Meiburg suggests that it’s going to be quite different from the band’s past releases. “We’re having trouble taming this one,” he says, “but luckily, we don’t really want to.” Expect a new album from the band in early 2012. The band signaled a change in direction from their most recent releases, the trilogy of mysterious, thematically-linked albums they’re now calling The Island Arc (The Golden Archipelago from 2010, the 2008 release Rook, and 2006’s Palo Santo) with a final, sold-out, three-hour epic performance in their hometown of Austin earlier this year. A set of recordings from that show are now available on the Shearwater bandcamp page.

Drummer Thor Harris, in the meantime, has been busy smashing tubular bells with hammers in Michael Gira’s reformed Swans, and is set to release a new instrumental album and book of drawings, A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Friendship, through Austin’s Monofonus Press. And bassist Kimberly Burke’s new play, “Miss Tibet,” will have a reading at Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco on May 16 & 17.

Meiburg’s been active, too—besides the loved/loathed Blue Water White Death collaboration with Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart late last year, he played keyboards on Bill Callahan’s new Apocalypse, added guest vocals to Okkervil River’s upcoming I Am Very Far, and performed two new, long, iridescent songs, “Hymn to the Valences” and “The Moth and the Milky Way” at the Whitney Museum of American Art with Andy Stack of Wye Oak. Studio recordings of these songs, inspired by the psychedelic natural scenes of painter Charles Burchfield, are available on Shearwater’s bandcamp this week (and, next year, on vinyl as part of Graveface Records’ subscription-only singles collection).